Making the NSC Great Again! (Now with 100% more neo-Nazis!)

In case the whole "idiotic visa restriction for entire countries except the ones that Donald Trump does business with!" thing that mike posted below wasn't idiotic enough for you, here's today's REALLY stupid thing:

Today's executive order removed the CIA director, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs from their permanent seats on the National Security Council (they will only attend meetings when their "area of expertise" is required...) and replaced them with...

(wait for it....)

Steve Fucking Bannon.

Honestly.

These really are the fucking mole people...

Blocking Visas

The new State Department is going to stop issuing visas to anyone from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen (now referred to as IILSSSY). 

The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center that killed 2996, injured 6000, and caused $10-billion in damage was done by 15 Saudis, two Emiratis, one Egyptian, and one Lebanese. Please note that none were from IILSSSY countries?

If you consider the Daesh headchoppers, peopleburners, & suicide bombers in Syria and Iraq, many came from other countries.  6000 came from Tunisia, 2500 came from Saudi Arabia, 2400 came from Russia, 2100 came from Turkey, and 2000 came from Jordan.  Others came in large numbers from Western Europe, Scandinavia and Kosovo. 

Why is this considered a smart policy?  How will it protect the US from terror attacks?

Old Pics

Old Pics Archive has posted antique photographs of the Battle of Stalingrad and the aftermath.  Sad to see the piles of dead bodies.  Some KIA, others frozen to death in their sleep.  Or so weak from starvation that they died of other complications.  Some of the bodies seem to be as malnourished and emaciated as concentration camp survivors.

http://www.oldpicsarchive.com/battle-for-stalingrad-39-photos/

 6th Army Commander, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, is shown in several of the pics.  Was he a "von" Paulus?  I never did understand all the nobility titles in any of Europe's countries.   But I did read on wiki that before taking over 6th Army he had never commanded a unit larger than a battalion.  He had however, as a member of the General Staff, helped to draft the plan for Operation Barbarossa.

The Soviet 62nd Army Commander, General Vasily Chuikov, is shown in photo #17.  He was nicknamed <i>'The Stone"</i> for his defense of the city.   I believe he was never given much credit by western historians.  Of course he had a lot of help outside the city from the other armies of the Don Front.  But his stubborn defense of the city itself was critical in allowing Operation Uranus to roll up the Romanian and Hungarian Armies protecting Paulus's flanks.  Chuikov invented the tactic of 'hugging-the-enemy' to negate their firepower advantage.  That same tactic, renamed 'grab-them-by-the-belt' was used a quarter century later against Americans by Generals Tran Van Tra and Vo Nguyen Giap.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/grab-their-belts-to-fight-them

Dreadlocks?

Easing rules on beards, turbans, hijab, braids, cornrows, twists, and locks:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-defense-religion-idUSKBN14P2AD

31 December 1941

_{Admiral Chester W. Nimitz took command of the US Pacific Fleet on this day 75 years ago.  His change of command ceremony was held on board the submarine Grayling, SS-209 moored alongside the submarine base wharf.  The crew then hoisted his brand new four star flag on the Grayling’s mast.  Normally a Fleet Admiral would have raised his flag on a battleship but of course there were none available.  But there were sentimental reasons for the choice of the Grayling also as Nimitz had served in subs earlier in his career, commanding the Plunger, Snapper, Narwhal and Skipjack.}
 

On 7 December Nimitz was Chief of BuNav, aka the Bureau of Navigation, and was soon tapped by SecNav Knox and President Roosevelt to take over the fleet in Pearl Harbor. Being in a desk job at BuNav may not sound like preparation for a fleet commander, but at that time it was accountable for much more than sextants, star catalogues, and oceanic charts. It was the primary naval organization responsible for procurement, training, promotion, assignment, and discipline of officers and sailors. In that job Nimitz had jurisdiction over the Naval Academy at Annapolis, the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (of which he was a founder), boot camps, and other Naval training facilities including technical ones. It was a job for an officer with outstanding people skills. Nimitz had those, even though he also had noticeable engineering skills. He had been a pioneer in adopting diesels for US subs. During WW1 he had developed one of the first ever UNREP, or Underway Refueling Systems, for cross Atlantic Navy combatants. Not long after WW1, as a young Lieutenant Commander (Major to you grunts) and with only a staff of four Chief Petty Officers, he built the sub base at Pearl Harbor. Much of the material he had to get through the cumshaw efforts of his four Chiefs who requisitioned it at midnight from stateside Navy Yards.

After Pearl was attacked Nimitz spent 12 days working around the clock at BuNav and at the Navy Department across the Potomac. He implemented the plan he had himself devised to bring the Navy up to a war standing. Then on 19 December he left Washington by the B&0 Capital Limited train for San Diego with just one Aide. No need for staff as there would be many officers in Pearl at loose ends who had no ships. He travelled incognito as Mr Freeman, his wife’s maiden name. In San Diego he boarded a Catalina flying boat. They left at 4pm on Christmas Eve. The Admiral apologized to the crew for taking them away from their families. He arrived at 7AM Christmas morning. After inspecting the damage in the harbor he had a late Christmas dinner with Admiral Kimmel and Admiral and Mrs Pye. Both Pye and Kimmel were senior to him and would be until he pinned on the four stars of CincPac. He was saddened to learn that a good friend of his, Admiral Isaac Kidd, was KIA on the bridge of the Arizona.

A lot has been said by historians about the good fortune of America that the Japanese raiding forces at Pearl primarily focused on battleship row and neglected to bomb the fuel farms just over the hill, and that the US carriers were at sea and unaffected. But at the time here was a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat at Pearl. You would have thought the Japanese had already won the war. Nimitz turned out to be critical in raising hopes. Over the next few days before taking command he attended many briefings and conferences, and conducted surveys of the damage. Those inspections included the harbor, damaged ships, salvage operations, dry-docks, warehouse, hangars, machine shops, communication facilities, offices and barracks. After a tour of harbor salvage ops, a coxswain asked: "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?" He is reported as saying the Japanese made several huge mistakes surprising the sailor and the staff officers that were also aboard. He then expounded on the target opportunities the Japanese raiding force had missed.

"Not only were the fuel farms and the carriers saved".

”They attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,000.”

”When they saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking them, that they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed those, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised.  One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And we already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.”

”Their tunnel vision kept them from bombing the machine shops and warehouses in the Navy Yard. With those assets we will put the fleet back in order quickly."

”They also neglected to target the sub base and the subs tied up and helpless at the wharf. They will pay for those mistakes.”

That story spread around Pearl like wildfire. Everyone from the highest staff officers to the lowest swab jockey and paint chipper heard that tale. Morale skyrocketed and the depression evaporated, everyone turned to. 

His people skills also served him well dealing with hard-headed subordinates like “Bull” Halsey, “Howling Mad” Smith, and “Terrible” Turner (from FDChief’s fair city of Portland) – and dealing with prima donna peers like MacArthur – and dealing with superiors like the crotchety CNO Admiral King. He also was a leader who believed in second chances. That was probably due to his running a destroyer aground outside Manila Bay in 1908 as a young Ensign, he was court-martialed and reprimanded but given another chance. I cannot imagine that happening in todays risk averse military.

хор красной армии

In memorium.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-airplane-idUSKBN14E02Y 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzCleIHK2lU

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuSTh_qRlvU

 

Heavy Heart

We lost another  good one, a 94year-old veteran, just a couple of days ago.  Happening just before Christmas, it was a hard blow to his family.  I can't say we were close friends as we only talked maybe two or three times a year for the last dozen years.  And he was a generation older than I.   But it hit me hard too.  He was a good man, cordial, generous, and courteous to all - a gentleman of the old school.  Had a wonderful sense of humor, laughing at himself, not at others.

He had served on Guadalcanal 74 years ago in the same year  I was born.  He was with an artillery battery serving on the gun line.  First with 75mm pack howitzers.  Later with 105s.  Those guns provided direct support for not only Marines but for a North Dakota National Guard Infantry Regiment that he and his battery mates christened the '164th Marines'.   

His favorite story was the several weeks they had not much to eat but captured Japanese Army rice.  It was a bit moldy, and full of weevils but when he complained to the mess cooks they told him it was good protein and don't waste it, so he ate it and said it wasn't half bad.  He laughed even more about that.   Once at a gathering after being introduced as a member of the 'greatest generation', he chuckled and told everybody how great his grandsons and granddaughters were.  "Head and shoulders above me", he claimed.   When we called him a hero, he would laugh and say: Oh hell, "I was just a gun bunny."

He  was a hero to our little corner of the world.  He will be missed.